The Old Abandoned Playground
by KelseyZoloft
Summary: KotakeDoremi. Includes: A sad Doremi, all the ojamajos, a spell, and true love. You'll love it, I promise.


**Ojamajo Doremi**

The Old Abandoned Playground

_By: **KelseyZoloft**_

_Disclaimer_: I don't own Ojamajo Doremi or anything about it. This is just me, a fan, writing a fiction about it. Please don't sue!

_Author's Note_: The only episodes of Ojamajo Doremi I've seen are some of the _very_ first ones and almost all the Naisho ones so please keep that in mind. I hope you enjoy this! I sure had fun writing it.

* * *

There was only one thing that Doremi loved more than steak. 

What, or who this was is something she wouldn't admit, ever. Even if she was tied above a lava boiling pit, lowered with a rope, and without access to magical powers she would still not admit it.

This thing was actually a person named Kotake.

There, she had admitted it to herself. The boy who she fought with constantly, the boy that everyone sort of suspected that she ruthlessly denied. Truth was, she was always preoccupied with thoughts about him. Maybe that's the reason she wasn't the most talented witch, or why her cookies didn't ever taste perfect, or that she made _average_ marks in school.

All of her other crushes, on people she didn't know were to try and distract herself from him. She figured, if she found someone that was cute enough, that actually loved her she could forget about him.

But her plans to snag another always went awry and sent her back down the same road. The road of loving someone she fought with that had described her as an "ugly, loud girl" or something to that effect.

Maybe he was the reason she spent more time looking in the mirror, making her more late to school. Maybe he was the reason she never got enough sleep and was tired. Maybe she was infatuated, but she never even admitted it to herself…well she did, but rarely.

She brushed everything off as, "I'm just thinking about the fight we had today and am just mad because I think no boy will think I'm pretty. Stupid Kotake, I don't care what he thinks!"

It's bad when you lie to yourself.

* * *

_Diiiing! Diiing! Ding!_

"What?" mumbled Doremi incoherently as she sat up in her bed, rubbing her eyes.

Her new digital alarm clock that her mom had bought her, in hopes that she'd get to school on time glowed the neon green numbers, "6:30."

Then she remembered, she had set it to wake her up 30 minutes earlier than usual to get "pretty" incase _any guys_ liked her. Even though, in the back of her mind an annoying voice, that sounded startlingly like Majorika, said, "_any guys_ Kotake."

She blinked a few times and wiped the "morning sleepies" from her eyes and grimaced, disgusted at herself and lumbered into the bathroom.

She stared at her hair, now in two buns and slowly unfastened both of them so she could redo them so they weren't so tangled.

As she pulled off both the scrunchies she let her long, red hair fall around her. It was a bit tangled and frizzy this morning so she raked a brush through it. After a few minutes of pain, yelping, and detangling, her hair looked like a silky version of itself, fit for a shampoo commercial. Okay, not really…but it was straighter now. She reached for the hair ties to do her usual style and then considered something for a moment.

_What if I wore my hair down today?_

The thought seemed plausible, she had never done it before, and maybe it would capture _any guy's_ attention…positively. She grinned at her reflection and walked back into her room and pulled on some clothes.

Many minutes later and Doremi was still getting ready. She had put on nearly every outfit in her closet and couldn't find anything that suited her. Eventually she decided to wear what she usually did, making the whole event pointless.

Yet again, even though she had woken up 30 minutes early, she was still going to be late. Her clock glowed, "8:05" sarcastically back at her and, as if on cue, her mom yelled at her.

"Doremi! I bought you that alarm clock so you'd wake up on time! Why aren't you downstairs?"

Doremi bit her lip, "Uhhh… Be right there, mom."

She ran down the stairs and nearly trampled Pop. "Don't run over me, you steam roller!"

Doremi looked at her, confused, "that wasn't one of your best, Pop."

Pop gaped at her and said, "Whatever. But you better hurry up, you missed breakfast and you're gonna be late to school."

"Oh yeah! Wait…why aren't _you_ going to be late?"

Pop blinked. "I'm _sick_ today," she said, faking a cough.

"Yeah right," Doremi said, sarcasm dripping from her voice, "you're as healthy as can be."

"Yeah! So what? I'm faking it. I can afford to do that, I don't have _C_s in all my classes!" Pop stated, matter-of-factly.

Doremi scowled and ran downstairs and said quickly "byemombyedad," and ran outside to try and catch up with her friends.

* * *

Doremi ran up to her friends and knelt, grabbing her knees and gasping from lack of breath. 

"Doremi?" said Momoko, "we thought you were sick, you were so late today."

"Yes," Hazuki said politely, "you were more late than usual, Doremi-chan."

Doremi looked at the ground and admitted, "sorry, I had…uhh, stuff to do."

"Homework, I hope," said Hazuki.

"Nah, she wouldn't of been doin' homework," said Aiko, "probably eatin' breakfast or somethin'."

"No, no, that's not it at all!" Onpu said dramatically, "she was _perplexed_ by something." Onpu said the word _perplexed_, emphasizing it, showing she was using the vocabulary words they had learned this week.

"Yeah!" Momoko, agreed, in English, "I bet I know who it was about! It was about Kotake-san!"

Doremi flushed and stared at the ground, "No it wasn't! Why would I ever let that useless excuse for a dog's heartworm _perplex_ me?"

"Because you _looveee_ him," sang Onpu.

"Do you have affections for this boy, Doremi?" Hazuki asked.

"What? No, no of course not!" Doremi denied.

All of her friends gave her a knowing look but Doremi ignored them, and tried to admit to herself that she didn't have _affections_ for Kotake of all people! Even though she knew she was in serious denial.

"Well you're hair looks nice, I've never seen you wear it down before," Momoko said smiling, "is it because you are trying to impress Kotake-kun?"

"No, no!" she denied, flabbergasted.

"It does look nice, Momoko is correct, Doremi-chan," Hazuki complimented.

"Thanks."

* * *

Doremi sat in the classroom, staring at he ceiling…anything so she wouldn't look at him. 

She was so busy trying to not meet eyes with him that she was distracted.

"Doremi, please read the next section!"

Awkward pause.

"Doremi! Are you even listening to me?"

Doremi came back into reality, "Sorry, I-I…" She didn't know where to start…

"Do you even know where we are, Doremi?"

"Umm…" Doremi stared down at the book in embarrassment. Laughter erupted in the classroom.

"Go to the principal's office, NOW!"

Doremi frowned, her eyes blurring. All because of dumb old Kotake she was getting into all this trouble! Why did she care what he thought? He was just mean to her all the time! She left the room, closing the door and made her way down the long hallway.

She sat in one of the chairs, waiting to see the principal. She had been in this boat many times before, but never because she was trying not to look at Kotake. What a stupid reason.

As she waited for the principal to call her in from the room and into his office she heard the door creak open.

Kotake.

Doremi nearly had a heart attack from the irony of the situation. She had been thinking completely of Kotake non-stop, and he just happened to get in trouble, just like her. She was breathless for a moment and didn't say anything.

"Aren't you gonna say something about, 'who's laughing now?'" Kotake said flatly.

"Nope."

There was a pause. "Are you gonna say anything?" he asked, sitting in the other chair.

"Okay," she said, "why are you here?"

"I was…uhh…distracted," he said.

"Why?" Doremi asked.

There was a long pause and Kotake flushed red but tried to hide it, "I was just thinking, that's all!"

"Okay."

"You're hair looks different," Kotake said, looking at her.

"Yeah, I wore it down today."

"No kidding," Kotake said sarcastically.

There was a silence, during which, both of them looked away from each other, trying to sneak glances.

"Doremi!" called the principal, "oh…and Kotake. Why don't you both come in here and tell me why you two are in trouble?"

They both nodded and came into his office and sat down. The principal rose from his chair and advanced across the room to close the door and then sat back down.

"Why are you two in here? _Another_ fight?"

"Actually, no," said Doremi, "we weren't in a fight."

"Then why?" he asked.

"We both lost our places while we were reading," Kotake explained.

"Well isn't _that_ a coincidence," he said, thoughtfully, "and what was it you two were thinking about?

"Things,"

"Stuff," Doremi and Kotake said at the same time.

"Well, well, well, _things_ and _stuff_, two very distracting things indeed," the older man mused, "care to elaborate?"

"Uhh…" Kotake managed.

"Yes?" he inquired.

"Nothing important," Kotake assured.

"If it was nothing important, why were you so distracted as to end up here, Mr. Kotake?"

There was an awkward silence. "Well, sir, I guess who – I mean what I was thinking about is sort of important."

Doremi listened to the whole thing intently, intrigued, yet sad at the same time. Kotake was thinking about some girl, someone…prettier. She needed to face the facts. Even at the time when she followed his bike trip and had pretended to be a high school girl, Kotake had described her as "not a pretty girl, and loud." She wallowed in her own misery for a while, halfway listening to the principal.

"You two are free to go," the principal finally said, "but don't be getting distracted by _things_ and _stuff_ again."

They both thanked him and left his office and went back into the hall. Kotake walked ahead of Doremi and the bell rang, signaling that classes for the day had been let out.

Doremi realized what she needed to do…and _experiment_ to find out who this girl was that Kotake liked so much…not because she was jealous, but to help the girl. She was in denial so much.

* * *

"Doremi!" yelled Momoko, "let's get to the shop. I have a new delicious recipe for muffins!" 

Doremi opened her mouth to protest but was interrupted.

"You got sent to the office again, Doremi," Hazuki stated, "is there something wrong?"

"No, no, I'm fine. But umm…I can't go to the shop today, I gotta take care of Pop, she's sick and all."

Aiko scratched her forehead. "Now that's strange. Pop's always been such a healthy gal…I guess that isn't _that_ strange, she was bound to catch an illness sooner or later."

"Yeah," Doremi agreed, "well see you guys around!"

* * *

She walked in the opposite direction and checked behind her, to see when they were gone. When she was sure, she turned around and ran into the park. She saw Kotake and realized now would be a good time to put her plan into action. She ducked behind a tree and exhaled. 

After the transformation took place she whispered to herself, "Pretty witchi Doremi-chii!"

She took out her wand and whispered, "_Pirika pirirara poporina peperuto, _turn me into the girl Kotake-kun likes!"

She waited, no magical beam, nothing. She shook the wand absently, wondering if it was broken.

She realized she would need, to make sure it wasn't broken, a basic spell.

"_Pirika pirirara poporina peperuto_, make the dandelion in front of me turn into a daisy."

Sure enough, the plant that used to be a weed bloomed into a beautiful daisy.

So her wand wasn't broken after all. Then why didn't she transform, was it because her magic wasn't strong enough? Or was it because…

She was the girl Kotake liked?

Her heart skipped a beat, she felt like she could pass out at any moment. Sure enough, the fell to the ground, choking, her witch costume transforming back into her normal clothes.

* * *

Kotake looked up, from the sound of hearing someone choking. He dragged his feet against the ground, stopping his swing and stood up. 

There was Doremi-chan! Choking! Possibly…_dying_!

He ran to her side, forgetting not to be obvious about his emotions.

"Doremi, Doremi, are you okay?"

_Cough, cough, cough_.

"Ahh! Obviously not!"

Doremi stopped choking and passed out, probably due to exhaustion. She hadn't had a thing all day, considering she missed breakfast and during lunch she was too nervous to eat.

"DOREMI!" he wailed. For some reason everyone had left the park, afraid of the drama, leaving Kotake to fend for himself.

"Oh my god! What if she's dead? Doremi, doremi…?"

No answer. Obviously. He was such an idiot! He grabbed her wrist and listened for a pulse.

_Nothing_.

The only sound was the sound of his nervous, pounding heart.

Doremi was really dead, his one and only_ love_. There, he had admitted it to himself. He loved the clumsy red-head girl that he constantly fought with. Now she was gone…tears beaded up in his eyes.

Wait! Maybe he could resuscitate her.

He pushed on her chest a few times to try and get her breathing start and then knelt over…now he had to pump air into her…

This would be when he would finally lock lips with Doremi.

Somehow this isn't how he pictured it.

He pressed his lips against hers, and at that very moment she came back. As if by _magic_.

She opened her eyes and there was Kotake, kissing her!

A million thoughts rushed through her head – he had saved her, he was kissing her, what if he didn't love her? But what about the spell?

But she kissed him back. Startled, he jumped back.

"You're…alive?" he said, in disbelief, his cheeks stained with tears, "thank god! I mean – uhh, uhh…"

He couldn't deny it now.

"Ohh, Kotake-kun!" she said, engulfing him in a hug, crying. "You saved me! Ohh Kotake…I don't know how to say this…but… I love you! I have…for a long time."

She felt her heart palpitate. She had just said those three deadly words and he wasn't saying anything back and was stiff against her embrace.

Eventually, he softened up and whispered back, "I love you, too."

She leaned away from the hug and pulled her arms from his shoulders. They both were kneeling, facing each other, inches apart.

He silently turned and put his arm around her shoulders and then both stared up at the sunset that was falling over the old, abandoned playground.

Then, Doremi thought to herself: _I'm the luckiest bishoujo in the world._


End file.
